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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25283260">Feddal</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffablefool/pseuds/ineffablefool'>ineffablefool</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(he is fat and pretty and Crowley loves him very much), (it's not explicitly in the South Downs but it can be if you like!), Asexual Relationship, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Chubby Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Established Relationship, Fluff, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Inspired by Fanart, No Sex, No Smut, Other, Post-Canon, Sheep, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), absolutely zero angst, seriously just one hundred percent soft marshmallow fluff please enjoy, they're ridiculously Soft about it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:40:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,371</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25283260</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffablefool/pseuds/ineffablefool</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In a cottage with a little pasture attached, a retired demon has some musings about sheep.  Humans seem to think they're soft, round, fluffy, adorable creatures, but they really aren't, especially compared to one other very soft, wonderfully round, excruciatingly adorable creature he could name.  The same ethereal creature who happens to be coming back into the cottage now he's done fussing over their sheep.  Will cuddles perhaps ensue?  (Spoiler: yes.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>63</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>201</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Asexual Good Omens, Aspec-friendly Good Omens</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Feddal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello!  Welcome to the Soft Zone(TM)!  I am afraid that today's offering is extra-soft. Or, wait.  Maybe afraid isn't the right word.  Pleased?  I am pleased that today's offering is extra-soft.  Yes.</p>
<p>Lovely Tumblr user penbwl posted <a href="https://penbwl.tumblr.com/post/623576335587082240/y-mwyaf-meddal">this adorable drawing</a> on Monday.  My brain started writing something based on it that evening, and I finished it up Tuesday night.  Today's Wednesday.  Here is a story about softness!  Thank you so much, Isaac.  I'm more happy than I can say that such a lovely canonverse fic idea could fall into my lap like this.</p>
<p>No mouth smoochies!  Hi my aro and/or ace fam.  I hope you all get unexpected good news today.</p>
<p><b>Note that the word "fat" is used in a positive context.</b>  Crowley loves one (1) fat, beautiful angel.  And so do I.</p>
<p>I base my writing on the TVverse, but I've decided that my written Aziraphale is visibly fat.  Tumblr and AO3 user Squeegeelicious has created <a href="https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/189282541139/squeegeelicious-a-walk-to-the-ritz-for">this absolutely gorgeous artwork</a> for my first human AU <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/20936816">If Not Now, When</a>, which should help you know what to visualize as you read!</p>
<p>Also: I did some googlin' and I think the coat that Aziraphale wears in the Bastille is a justacorps?  And even if it isn't, Crowley apparently thinks it is anyway.  So.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sheep, Crowley will be the first to inform anyone who will listen, are disgusting creatures. They’re dirty, and they’ve got that weird oily-sticky texture, and they smell. Even when they’re supposedly clean, Crowley can still smell them. People who’ve never had to deal with the things think they’re perfect white balls of cuddly fluff, and they’re absolutely, one hundred percent wrong.</p>
<p>Aziraphale has lived through all the same nasty livestock-smelling centuries Crowley has, and should really know better, too. But he’s always been one for stubborn optimism.</p>
<p>Out in the pasture behind their cottage, there are four perfect white balls of cuddly fluff bouncing around. Three of them are sheep, good sturdy Welsh Mules, gamboling about like happy earthbound clouds. The fourth is a head of curly hair. It moves between the sheep as its owner bestows on each a few words of encouragement, a scratch behind the ears. Crowley can’t feel the blessing from here, looking out through the window with his heart flopping around like a particularly besotted fish, but it’s the same every morning: health, good forage. No bugs to bite and itch. The flock is always clean and soft and adorable because that’s how Aziraphale thinks it should be.</p>
<p>Aziraphale is also clean and soft and adorable when he comes back into the cottage. His sturdy cotton work shirt has the sleeves rolled up, but the cuffs would be spotless no matter what. There isn’t even mud on the shoes he leaves by the door. There is, however, straw in his hair. His eyes are bright, and he’s smiling, and his whole Gentleman Farmer thing is years old by this point, but Crowley had a couple centuries to get used to his last look, and this one is a lot less... conservative. Like those sleeves, rolled up to show his round forearms. Crowley could go snake-shaped right now, coil himself around one of those forearms, never move again.</p>
<p>Being man-shaped has its advantages, though, so he doesn’t. He coils his arms around Aziraphale’s waist instead. No waistcoat or topcoat or tweed jacket or bloody <i>justacorps</i> to get in the way these days. He can snuggle right up to the softest thing in all Creation, hold him right around his fat belly, and kiss him right on his fat cheek.</p>
<p>Aziraphale laughs and puts his own arms around Crowley’s neck. “Francis says hello.”</p>
<p>“Does he now.” Crowley drops his head to Aziraphale’s shoulder, as soft and pretty and fat as all the rest of him. “Well, hello to him too, then. Are the others mad at me, or are they just shy?”</p>
<p>“Now, darling, you know they’d warm up to you if only you spent more time with them.”</p>
<p>There’s a pout in Aziraphale’s voice, and on his face, when Crowley looks. Eyebrows raised just so, mouth hopeful. Gorgeous blue eyes that could drown not just one thumping-hearted demon but the combined navies of every nation of the world.</p>
<p>“Hey now,” Crowley answers with his last crumbling scraps of will. “I mind the garden, you mind the sheep. Was the arrangement when we <i>bought</i> the blessed things, you know that.”</p>
<p>“Well.” Aziraphale looks down, eyelashes fluttering demurely, double chin folding so deep that Crowley’s heart can barely keep up. “Only, it’s an arrangement but not really an <i>Arrangement</i>, do you see?”</p>
<p>“I, uh,” Crowley says.</p>
<p>“And they’re dears, truly they are, but they can be a handful sometimes.” The eyes hit him full-force again. “It’s such a lot of work caring for living creatures.”</p>
<p>Which is nonsense, of course, because the sheep practically take care of themselves. The hardest thing Aziraphale has to do is bid a teary-eyed goodbye to them each spring. There’s a fiber mill the next village over, does everything from shearing to skeining, but the few days the flock has to spend there might as well be forever, the way Aziraphale mopes around the cottage meanwhile. Even the promise of all the new jumpers he’ll knit for Crowley doesn’t console him.</p>
<p>Crowley also knows from his own experience that caring for living creatures is simple enough. Just have to keep a firm hand so the cabbages don’t bolt.</p>
<p>Right now, though, he’s got a firm hand on Aziraphale. Both hands, actually, pressed to the softness of his back, keeping him as close as possible. When Aziraphale <i>smiles</i> at him, small and sweet, he gives in to the wonderful surrender that is giving his angel exactly what he wants.</p>
<p>“All right,” he says, extremely grumpily and not at all with his heart stumbling love-drunk around in his chest. “Tomorrow I’ll come out to the pasture with you. But only because someone needs to keep the mutton in line.”</p>
<p>Aziraphale gives him a reproachful look. “They’re <i>family</i>, Crowley, you mustn’t speak of them so.”</p>
<p>“Oh, family. Sure. Cousins of yours, then?” Crowley kisses his cheek, the one that hasn’t been kissed at least since breakfast. “Must be yours, they look nothing like me. Lovely round things.”</p>
<p>When he kisses Aziraphale’s hair, it’s soft and fluffy and smells of sweet lavender. Also, he gets straw in his mouth.</p>
<p>Aziraphale pulls back a little, swatting at his shoulder, but he’s obviously pleased. “Foul fiend. They’re only practically our children.”</p>
<p>“Our <i>children</i>.”</p>
<p>“And it’s up to us to ensure that their home is a supportive one —”</p>
<p>“No, no, hang on. Want to unpack this a little.” Crowley obviously needs to find somewhere new to put his hands, since he’s no longer doing his best constrictor impression around Aziraphale’s waist. He ambles behind him, which lets him put his chin on one angelic shoulder, and from there he can look out the window at the white puffs in the distance. It also lets him wrap his arms around Aziraphale from behind. Obviously just to keep him from wandering off to purchase more livestock. The opportunity to rest his hands on Aziraphale’s shirtfront, on the wondrous curve of his belly, is just a bonus.</p>
<p>“The stinky ungulates,” he says, “are our children.”</p>
<p>“They aren’t ‘stinky’. And yes.” Aziraphale brushes his hands lightly over Crowley’s arms, down to where their fingers can gently interlace against the roundness of him. “So, you see, you have to show them kindness.”</p>
<p>Crowley mumbles something skeptical.</p>
<p>“<i>Kindness</i>, Crowley.” Aziraphale’s voice is firm. “They’re very dear things, and they deserve a home full of kindness, and of support.” A pause before he goes on. “And love. That, most of all, I should think.”</p>
<p>He strokes both thumbs over Crowley’s knuckles, for a moment. When Crowley holds him tighter, hands sliding to cradle his belly, he hums out a peaceful little sound.</p>
<p>Crowley kisses his hair again, and gets another mouthful of straw, which is worth it. “You’re the one with those ethereal senses. Think we’ve got enough love?”</p>
<p>He leans his head onto Aziraphale’s. Six thousand years he waited for this, and it’s beautiful. They’re beautiful. Them, their side, whatever greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts thing it is they make up, now that they stand together. Beautiful.</p>
<p>Not as beautiful as the fussy little angel filling up his arms, of course. But nothing could be.</p>
<p>“Oh, my treasure,” the beautiful fussy little angel says, and he wiggles in Crowley’s arms a bit like an exciteable lamb might do. “We’ve all the love we could ever need.”</p>
<p>He takes Crowley’s hand, bringing it to his lips for a kiss which is longing and lingering and sweet.</p>
<p>Crowley doesn’t really want to do anything except hold Aziraphale for a while, so that’s what he does. The sheep do sheep things out in the pasture. The garden is probably getting all sorts of ideas, being left unsupervised like this, but he’ll bring it to heel. Maybe he’ll threaten to let in the sheep.</p>
<p>Their cottage is quiet around them, though, and Aziraphale rests snugly in his arms. This is good for now. It’s nice. Sometimes nice is just right.</p>
<p>“Still not adopting the sheep,” Crowley mumbles into Aziraphale’s hair. “You’re ridiculous. Why would you even think of adopting sheep?”</p>
<p>There’s a lazy shrug. “I’m soft,” Aziraphale says.</p>
<p>Crowley breathes him in, and it’s love that fills his lungs, nothing so unnecessary as air. He breathes it out on a smile. “The softest,” he agrees.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(For the record, "feddal" is apparently Welsh for "soft"!  <strike>i have no idea how to pronounce it though whoops</strike>)</p>
<p>Thank you for reading!  If you were thinking of leaving a comment, please know that I treasure every single one.  I've literally cried a few times reading some of the lovely things people have said, and they really are fuel for my soft little heart -- but never, ever required, so please don't feel pressured. </p>
<p>If you want to say hi on Tumblr, I'm <a href="https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com">ineffablefool</a> there, too.</p>
<p>I would never actively request art from anyone I wasn't paying, but if you, the human reading this, were to decide it was worth your time to create fanart based on any of my stories, I would be incredibly honored (<a href="https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/tagged/ineffablefool-gets-fanart-from-lovely-people">and would love to enshrine it forever on my Tumblr</a>)!  I have only one requirement: please don't draw Aziraphale any thinner than the size I headcanon (I need both my soft cuddly daydreams, and my positive fat representation).  Here are some examples of what that sort of minimum body size/shape might look like: (<a href="https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/189282541139/squeegeelicious-a-walk-to-the-ritz-for">beautiful fanart created for me by Squeegeelicious</a>) (<a href="https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186342035100/i-did-this-instead-of-my-hw-ya-girl-is-gonna">speremint 1</a>) (<a href="https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186574829700/finally-finally-done-making-these-refs-my">speremint 2 from her Reversed Omens AU</a>) (<a href="https://dotstronaut.tumblr.com/post/186740069618/no-really-i-dont-think-you-all-understand-how">dotstronaut</a>)  Otherwise, the characters can look however you like!</p>
<p>I hope you're having a fantastic day.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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